BioLOGIC is opening a new office on Short Vine. Keith Schneider will manage the new office, as well as bioLOGIC's existing Covington office. / The Enquirer

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BioLOGIC, the life science accelerator that’s based in Covington, plans to open a satellite office in Cincinnati on Short Vine.

The new location, near the live music venue Bogart’s, is part of bioLOGIC’s effort to leverage local assets like Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati, as well as state programs like Ohio Third Frontier.

BioLOGIC is owned by SIDIS Corp, a global technology and investment management group that also has offices in New York; Fort Collins, Colo.; Shanghai and Melbourne. Its investment focus is on emerging companies looking to commercialize life-science technologies including instrumentation, medical devices, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals.

SIDIS’ portfolio of 16 companies includes Bexion Pharmaceuticals, which is developing an experimental cancer treatment using a compound that was discovered at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in 2002. Bexion’s offices are based in bioLOGIC’s newly renovated Covington space.

“We want to be close to the sources of intellectual property: Children’s and UC,” SIDIS CEO Nigel Ferrey told the Enquirer on Thursday. “We have to be where it is, we have to be in the flow.”

Ferrey said the Short Vine office, which will be ready “soon,” potentially opens the door for future Ohio-based SIDIS companies to secure funding from state-focused resources like Third Frontier, the voter-approved initiative that uses state money to fund technology-based products, companies, industries and jobs.

Ferrey said the Cincinnati office will mirror the model of bioLOGIC’s Covington location, which includes co-working space for startups and access to resources including legal help, accountants, public relations and marketing. The model creates a feeder system for SIDIS, which has made investments in several of bioLOGIC’s startups.

BioLOGIC managing director Keith Schneider will run both offices.

Ferrey, who was born in Northern Ireland and raised in Canada, eventually moved to the United States for work. He formed SIDIS in 2004 and came to the region in 2006. Ferrey and Bexion CEO Ray Takigiku formed bioLOGIC in 2007. It’s since received key support from organizations including The Duke Energy Foundation, Haile U.S. Bank Foundation and R.C. Durr Foundation.

Ferrey said expanding in the region was an obvious decision.

“This has a really good source of talent. It’s intellectually rich, the costs are right, and it’s accessible,” he said.